digital media

Every year, consumers spend more time using digital devices. Every year, more media is consumed digitally. Naturally, advertising dollars are increasingly flowing to digital as well. But, don’t pull the plug on that direct mail campaign just yet. New research has again shown that content on paper affects our brains in different and more powerful ways.

Millennials (those born from 1980 onward) are a key target for many brands and marketers. Whilst older groups are still the largest media audiences these under 35s have unique digital consumption habits. As they get older, these habits will only become more mainstream. So understanding more about this audience, and how they use digital tools and technologies, is critical for any brand.

My first media job was in New York, where I learned the radio business. My company, Katz Media, had an outstanding training program, where for three months we were drilled in the basics of radio formats, research techniques, sales skills and marketing strategy.

So when I first arrived in Poland in 1997, I felt well prepared. Surely, in a newly capitalist economy, where the entire concept of a media business was novel, my experience and expertise would give me a leg up. Alas, I found that often the opposite was true.

The media business is not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel yet. When people asked me about my magazine and the economics of that, they were saying why I am in publishing business. Well, that is not my core business, just a hobby. It has been almost three years since the first publication of MISC and readership is growing nicely. We're now in 28 countries and we have have the digital version. I am getting a lot of positive feedback from readers from all over the world. Perhaps I should make the next issue the thickest one. This is the first cover that was shot in Milan. And the next cover will be shot in Shanghai.

Earlier this month, a guest contributor to the blog Racialicious accused Victoria’s Secret of “fetishizing” Asian women because it packaged a mesh teddy with a matching fan, hair chopsticks, and faux geisha obi belt (pictured on an Anglo model). The predictable social coverage swarm ensued, and now the product has disappeared from the company’s site.

I couldn’t agree more. Speaking personally, Instagram started replacing Twitter as my social network of choice about a year ago. More to the point, there is now a wealth of statistics to underpin what Richard is talking about. This is specially when you consider that many of the biggest social media stories of the past year – Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest and now the likes of Socialcam – are visual.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. After the great social media boom of the past few years when it seemed like new digital media tools were shifting the American public from a “lean-back” to a “lean-forward” mentality in the way that they interact with content, it looks like the Couch Potato is back.

People have been trying for years to crack the idea of creating some kind of interplay between print media and screen media. Unfortunately most of the offerings that people have come up with have never achieved any kind of traction, mostly because they've been simply too, well, clunky.

A lot of people have got pretty excited about the prospects around so-called 'Social TV'. Perhaps for good reason since a wholesuccession of studies have shown the increasing prevalence of 'media stacking' including the most recent YouGov survey which found that 76% of the UK viewers it spoke to surf the web on their laptops, mobiles or tablets whilst simultaneously 'watching' TV.